The present invention relates to a striated belt and, more particularly, to a V-profiled belt intended for automotive applications.
The Applicant markets striated belts with V-shaped teeth, the so-called adapted-modulus belts, which belts comprise polyamide 6.6 twisted strands and are intended for electric household appliances, such as linen washers and dryers.
Such belts have a stress-elongation diagram, which characterizes their modulus of elasticity and the average slope of which, between 1% and 10% of elongation, is substantially equal to 5.5 daN/ % of elongation, per belt width centimeter and per strand.
The belts are mounted, with a fixed distance between axes, by tensioning them and, once positioned, by releasing them (the so-called automatic mounting process or “snap-on”).
Anyway, belts of this type but usable for automotive applications are not on the market at the present time.
As a matter of fact, the use of twisted strands in a striated belt intended for automotive applications, so as to transmit power between an engine and a receiving device, such as an alternator, means a number of problems, especially owing to the acyclic property of the engine output curve, this acyclic feature being sharper for four-cylinder engines than for six- or eight-cylinder engines and being quite greater in diesel engines than in gasoline engines.
Since the electrical power requirements of automotive vehicles tend to increase at present (air conditioning, etc.), the amperage of alternators has to be increased too, and therefore their inertia, which increases proportionately the stresses imposed upon the belts.